Free Form Friday

23 thoughts on “Free Form Friday”

pogo, yes, the pot did say “I actually don’t think [Pelosi] is a talented person … I’ve tried to be nice to her because I would’ve liked to have gotten some deals done. She’s incapable of doing deals … She’s a nasty, vindictive, horrible person.”

House Democrats are hoping to use Sen. Mitch McConnell‘s “legislative graveyard” as a messaging tool to topple GOP candidates in 2020.

McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate majority leader, is embracing his role as a roadblock to the Democrats’ legislative agenda, casting himself as the “Grim Reaper” poised to kill the Democrats’ top policy priorities. The barrier has frustrated Democrats as they fight to advance legislation they promised voters in 2018, but they also see it as a political gift heading into next year’s elections.

Just this week, the House passed legislation granting legal protections to so-called “Dreamers,” immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. Democrats also hope to soon pass an increase to the minimum wage; and measures on climate change, health care and gun safety have already been approved.

Those proposals poll well nationally, and Democrats think voters — particularly those fed up with Washington gridlock — will take notice if McConnell simply ignores them, as he’s vowing to do.

[…]

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has made it routine to denounce McConnell’s “Grim Reaper” promise as a barrier to any progress on Capitol Hill. This week, she marked the first 150 days of the Democrats’ House majority by rattling off a slew of proposals already passed by the lower chamber that now sit idle in the Senate. The list includes voting rights protections, campaign finance reforms, pay equality for women, a net neutrality bill and protections for the LGBTQ community.

“We’re very proud of the work that we have done to send over to the Senate, where Mitch McConnell has said he’s ‘the Grim Reaper’ — it’s a Senate graveyard,” she told reporters in the Capitol. “We have news for him: it’s alive and well in the public, and he will be hearing from the public, hopefully very soon.”

McConnell is up for reelection in 2020, and Democrats are scrambling to field a prominent candidate to challenge him. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) met earlier this year with Amy McGrath, a former Marine pilot, in hopes of recruiting her. McGrath lost a close race against Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) in 2018, attracting national attention as one of the top Democratic fundraisers of the cycle, but she has so far declined to enter the Senate contest.

Matt Jones, a popular sports radio host, has also flirted with the idea of jumping into the race.

Kentucky is a Trump stronghold — the president won the state with 63 percent of the vote in 2016 — but polls show that McConnell’s approval rating has been underwater this year.

Democrats hoping to use the majority leader as a national soundbite are also hoping Kentucky voters hear the message.

the hill:Flynn told investigators Russia asked for Trump-Putin video call day after inauguration

Prosecutors have released a less-redacted version of an FBI memo describing the interview agents had with President Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn in January 2017.

The document shows that Flynn told investigators that Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak asked him during a Dec. 28, 2016, phone call to set up a “VTC,” an apparent reference to a video teleconference, between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

[…]

The new version of the memo, known as an FD-302, also shows that Flynn told FBI agents that he met with Kislyak and Jared Kushner at Trump Tower in New York City following the 2016 election. The meeting has previously been subject to press reporting and is referenced in Mueller’s 448-page report, a redacted version of which was released in April following the conclusion of his investigation. The memo describes the meeting as “sensitive.”

“KISLYAK was in New York to meet with his diplomats, and the three had a relatively sensitive meeting. FLYNN was a late addition to the meeting and did not participate in setting it up,” the memo states.

“FLYNN believed the meeting took place before Thanksgiving but was unsure of the date. FLYNN explained that other meetings between the TRUMP team and various foreign countries took place prior to the inauguration, and were sensitive inasmuch as many countries did not want the then-current administration to know about them,” it continues.

Flynn also told the FBI that he and other members of the Trump administration met with representatives of other countries “to set expectations for them, and the expectations were set very high.”

[…]

Sullivan granted prosecutors’ request earlier Thursday to disclose more information from the memos because there no longer exists a “compelling government interest” to keep them sealed.

The new details come amid other drama in Flynn’s case. Earlier Thursday, a court filing revealed Flynn had fired his Covington & Burling attorneys and replaced them with new counsel.

We remember the 75th commemoration of the D-Day landings in Normandy as we should. I also commemorate that the US Navy, US Army Air Corps, and US Marines who were turning the tide in the Pacific at Midway 77 years ago this week.

Really seriously –Joe Biden? Might as well call him Mr. Backtrack. He record on abortion rights is abysmal and now he is changing ???????? It took a national outcry — it that what you want to do every time the president does something stupid. Don’t we have that already
No tot Joe he isn’t the right one for these times. He is still living is some kind of 50’s bubble when he can pretend being Catholic makes being an asshole alright

I don’t think merely being better than Trump is enough
I’m voting Democratic in the election but Biden will only give us 4 more years of Trump
Women are not going to be excited about a pro-life candidate who only changes his mind during a campaign.
I don’t like Budda gaga that much either. I think he is unelectable.

It’s not apparent contempt for Biden. It’s real. He tells ethnic jokes with accent and pretends he is a man of the people. He’s an ass and shouldn’t be in the race

I’m baaaack. Stupid me… I took a chance and left the bird feeders out. Rick said… I bet when we get back I’ll tell you I told you so that you should have put them away in the garage. He told me so. The bear not only took out my feeders… he left a big pile of shit in our backyard.

It was great seeing Kathleen (OldSeaHag)… we spent a lovely day with her sans grand babies (haven’t done that in years). More later…

The 2020 election is lurching toward us like a malfunctioning robot, and I think we must ask ourselves: Can we risk nominating a man for president?

Men selected as major-party nominees for president have failed to win the popular vote 50 percent of the time. Contrast that to the 100 percent of the time that a female nominee for president has won the popular vote.

More importantly, are Americans ready to withstand another four years of male presidency? It is unpleasant to traffic in stereotypes, and many men are in no way like this, but recent experience teaches that for usually 30 days a month (sometimes 31, occasionally 28), a male president will fall victim to irritability and irrationality that causes him to embarrass the nation abroad and make emotional decisions not based on math or information. It is good he thinks he is capable, and dreaming big is, of course, to be encouraged for all children! But we must not avert our gaze from the results.

We must think of the average voter. It is not fair, but we must do it! It is all very well, in an ideal world, to say men should be allowed to govern without having to battle against the ugly stereotypes of the man in the minds of voters — voters who, when they see who has been nominated, will only see their third-most-cherished uncle, or a science teacher who tried too hard to be friends with his students, or the source of a cruel and misspelled message on a dating app, or the creative team behind “Game of Thrones.” The voice of such a person, reminiscent as it is of being talked over during a meeting, will seem grating and unpleasant to the ear — somehow too loud and too soft and too high and too low at the same time. And men’s documented need for offices the temperature of a Siberian meat locker will make them seem weak and vulnerable abroad.

Male presidential candidates are noted for their inexplicable and sudden desires to do irrational things, such as assassinate Alexander Hamilton, create the Bull Moose Party or be John Edwards. And once they’re in office, this behavior continues. Sometimes, for no reason, a man will decide to throw himself a Teapot Dome Scandal or a Bay of Pigs, or decide to do things to the Philippines that we have yet to adequately reckon with as a country.

Not all men are Jacksons or McKinleys or even the fellows responsible for keeping Jackson’s loathsome visage on our twenties. But having to battle the presumption that they are will waste voters’ energy — energy better spent being genuinely excited by a candidate!

No, we cannot risk this again. There is just too much at stake to risk nominating the sort of person who, time and time again, has proved unable even to serve in a state legislature without becoming helplessly derailed by the desire to regulate a stranger’s uterus.

Of course, not all men fall into these broad categories! Some men are just weird about having one-on-one dinners with powerful women such as Angela Merkel or Theresa May, which will make it difficult for America to further its interests. Some men are the BTK Killer, whereas other men are only probably the Zodiac Killer.

But this election is too important for such experiments. When Americans look to the person in charge of their government, they should not just think of everything in the past that has gone wrong. There will be another time to attempt the noble trial of seeing whether this country can handle a 45th man as president, after Grover Cleveland twice and — Warren G. Harding! I mean, honestly, Warren G. Harding!

Men have had their chance. Let us not risk four more years of this. After the past 230, we have been warned.

Go away for a few hours only to see that the low intelligence SFB thinks the Moon and Mars are related. Yes they both start with the letter M, but one orbits Earth and one has its own moons. Do not normalize the criminal who needs impeachment and prison.

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